Geeks Working

Geeks Working

Everyone is wired differently. Some people are artistic, some are leaders and some are highly technical. Most of the time, it is fairly difficult for these different types of people to communicate effectively and understand each others' limitations and strengths. This can be especially true if you find yourself working as a non-technical employee in a highly technical field such as software development.

Fortunately, you can ease the relationship with your more technical colleagues if you take the time to learn about their work. Here are some tips to help you better understand the pains and complications that go along with developing and maintaining software from a developer's point of view, as well as how to position yourself to best work with them.

Start With the Basics

First of all, try to get up-to-date information on the basics of programming languages and industry jargon. Check out Wikipedia or industry blogs to brush up on what is current and get more familiar with industry buzz words.

Know Your Limits

At the same time, be careful not to stretch the truth on your actual level of technical expertise. If you do so, it will be incredibly obvious to those who have spent their life studying and training in these areas. It will also destroy your credibility and ability to be trusted and respected within the company. Instead, try to keep up with the lingo, but always ask questions as appropriate. Continue developing your expertise on the most common topics of conversation and soon you will be up to speed.

Jump In

Once you are at least able to understand the language (if not able to speak it fluently), step forward confidently and try your best to assist the developers. You were obviously hired at the new firm because you have some value to bring to the table, so pitch in when and where you can.

Know Your Team

And as you make contributions to the discussions, be aware of your team members' strengths and weaknesses. Just because they are developers doesn't mean they don't have any design abilities. And just because you are not a developer doesn't mean that you don't know anything about JavaScript. Don't pigeonhole people into a single role or responsibility until you become more familiar with their background and prior experience. They might just surprise you.

Listen closely to developers' reactions to the different ideas you propose. You may want to jump in and create a highly improved product, but anyone at the table can tell you there are no small changes when it comes to writing software. Even the smallest tweak in a design element tweak, layout adjustment or functionality change could require a significant amount of time spent reworking the source code. So, choose wisely when making your suggestions and make sure you have thought through both the value-add and the internal costs of making such adjustments.

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